The Vampire & Her Witch

For several heartbeats, Jocelynn said nothing, gripping the rough tiller with her hands and steering the coble upriver while listening to the steady, rhythmic splashing of Ashlynn’s oars in the water.

There were a dozen questions in her heart that were desperate for answers, but each time one came close to her lips, another one pulled it back down, like crabs in a bucket that wouldn’t let any of their brethren escape.

Ashlynn, for her part, didn’t push. She offered nothing and asked nothing, allowing Jocelynn to collect her thoughts at her own pace while she rowed smoothly from the calm, sluggish waters of the river bend’s ’belly’ into the swifter current upriver where the river narrowed.

Eventually, Jocelynn collected enough of her thoughts to speak, though she couldn’t quite work up the courage to ask her questions directly.

”I heard what happened to Sir Kaefin,” Jocelynn began, looking at her perfectly clean hands that gripped the tiller. ”They said he’d been stabbed in the chest over and over again, and when they found him, his pants were around his ankles and... Did he, did he hurt you...?” Jocelynn asked, coming as close to the question in her heart as she could.

”He discovered me,” Ashlynn said. ”Before that, he threatened me, and he tried to treat me like a servant he could force into his bed... I didn’t let him,” she said bluntly. ”But the pants... I pulled those down myself, to make it clear to everyone what he intended. I didn’t want him dying as a martyr or anything...”

”Not that it worked,” Ashlynn said with a snort. ”Owain made him out to be a saint after everything that happened next.”

”Was it... was it easier?” Jocelynn asked hesitantly. ”Was it easier to do it because you weren’t ’you’ when it happened? Because you were ’Lynnda’ at the time? Is that why you used that name again when we were sneaking out?”

”No,” Ashlynn said quietly. ”It’s not like that. Fake names are the thinnest of masks according to Marcell,” Ashlynn said. ”They’re not there to turn you into someone else; they’re just there so people don’t put two and two together quickly enough to realize who you really are. But behind the name, you’re still you. Why?”

”Did it, um, did it bother you?” Jocelynn asked. ”What you did to Kaefin and, and what you did to Broll. Did it bother you afterwards?”

”It did,” Ashlynn said, momentarily stopping her rowing and allowing the small fishing boat to drift in the river’s current.

The sky was just starting to turn that peachy hue just before dawn that Nyri loved so much, and she could feel her lover fading into the distance now that she and Jocelynn were both safe on the river.

For a moment, Ashlynn almost wished Nyrielle was here... She’d helped so much when Ashlynn came home from her first venture to the Summer Villa. Now, it seemed like Jocelynn was haunted by ghosts of her own, and it was her turn to be the big sister who had done very hard things before.

”There wasn’t much time to feel after Kaefin,” Ashlynn said softly. ”I didn’t plan to kill him, but after he discovered who I really was, I didn’t see any other way. After that, all I could think about was getting away. I was scared that I’d get Ollie in trouble, so I grabbed him and just... ran. I kept running all day long until Broll caught us in the woods with his hunting party.”

”Broll was different,” Ashlynn said, her eyes growing distant. Mechanically, moving without much thought, she took up the oars again and started to row, trusting entirely in Jocelynn to handle the tiller and steer them toward their destination as she spoke.

”Broll was personal,” Ashlynn said with a slight trace of heat in her voice. ”He kicked me and cracked my ribs before he helped Tommin bury me alive. Kaefin, I killed because I had to. He was a wicked man, and I have no regrets about killing him,” Ashlynn added. ”But Broll... Broll I wanted dead.”

”Is that why you, um, tore him to pieces?” Jocelynn asked, looking deep into her sister’s eyes for any trace of the cruel gleam she’d seen reflected in Owain’s eyes after Percivus died. But Ashlynn’s eyes were clouded and distant, and when she spoke, there wasn’t the slightest trace of triumph or glee in her voice.

”I didn’t have anything to do with that,” Ashlynn said directly. ”That happened after he was dead, to make it seem like he’d died in an Eldritch attack. Thane did it to hide our tracks. I cut off Broll’s hands,” Ashlynn confessed as though it wasn’t an important detail. ”But only in the course of stopping him from using his axe against me in our duel.”

”Afterward, I shook for hours,” Ashlynn said softly. ”Thane had to carry me home to the Vale. I’d never wanted, really wanted, to see someone die before. And when it happened, at my hands... I was a little afraid of myself for a while. Afraid that I really was becoming a demon and all the other horrible things the Church called witches. I had nightmares about it for a long time...” Ashlynn said, looking up to meet Jocelynn’s tear-filled gaze.

”You have the nightmares too?” Jocelynn asked. ”Do you still feel the blood and the blade in your hand and...”

”Oh, Jocey,” Ashlynn said, pausing only long enough to pull the oars in before she rushed to the back of the boat and threw her arms around her sister. For a moment, Jocelynn went completely stiff, and she almost pulled away, taking a deep, sharp breath as she felt the pull of Ashlynn’s embrace.

A heartbeat later, her sister’s warm, evergreen scent reached her nose, along with the feeling of a softness that had always held her close on the most frightening nights of her young life, and the resistance melted under the pressure of that safe, familiar closeness.

”Jocey, I’m so sorry,” Ashlynn said, holding her sister close as she gently stroked Jocelynn’s hair.

”I, I hated Percivus for, for what he did to me,” Jocelynn sobbed as the tears began to flow freely. ”I hated him even more for what he did to Cousin Eleanor,” she said sharply, hanging onto Ashlynn as if she were afraid that she’d fall out of the boat. ”I wanted him to suffer for it, the way he’d made us suffer...”

”But when Owain, he, he put the knife in my hands and I...” Jocelynn choked out between ragged gasps for breath. ”I stabbed him so many times, and I can still see him there when I close my eyes to sleep and... And Owain told me I should t-take my time and sa-savor the moment... And I... The knife Owain gave me was so small, and it took so long for Percivus to die that I... I....”

”Shhh,” Ashlynn said softly as she stroked Jocelynn’s bright blonde hair. ”Don’t put even an ounce of faith in anything that Owain said, not about this or anything else,” Ashlynn said a touch more sternly than she meant to.

”I don’t think there’s anything to ’savor’ about taking someone’s life,” Ashlynn said, pulling back enough that she could look directly into Jocelynn’s eyes. ”But I feel better knowing that Owain is dead and that he can’t hurt anyone else, ever again... Is it like that for you, with Percivus?” Ashlynn asked gently. ”Are you glad that he’s gone?”

”Does that make me a monster?” Jocelynn asked, followed by a loud sniff. ”If I’m happy that he’s gone and he’ll never... never do that to anyone else. Or, or if, sometimes, I wish he’d suffered longer... For days, like he tormented Eleanor and me... It just doesn’t feel like enough, sometimes, that it’s over for him when I still hurt so much, and Eleanor is gone forever and....”

”You’re not a monster, Jocey,” Ashlynn said, pulling her sister into another hug. ”Or if you are, I am too,” she added gently.

”I hate that this hurts you,” Ashlynn added after several moments spent drifting while she held her sister. ”But I’m glad it does too. If it didn’t, if you could really be happy watching someone else suffer, even someone like Percivus, it would mean that you’re exactly the sort of monster Owain was.”

”But you aren’t,” Ashlynn said, ignoring the slight twinge of pain from her chest as she pulled back to brush Jocelynn’s hair away from her eyes. ”You’re not like Owain, and you never will be, because if he dreamed of these things, he’d relive them as triumphs and they’d never cause him pain.”

”So... Tell me about the nightmares,” Ashlynn said as gently as she could. ”And I’ll tell you about mine too.”